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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27493672">not the man i'd hoped to be</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavydirtymigraine/pseuds/heavydirtymigraine'>heavydirtymigraine</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twenty One Pilots</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Self Harm, Song fic, Suicide, uhhhhh this is very dark please proceed with caution</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:47:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>980</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27493672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavydirtymigraine/pseuds/heavydirtymigraine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>everything is red and tyler is scared.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Josh Dun/Tyler Joseph</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>not the man i'd hoped to be</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is a very heavy vent fic. please be safe.</p><p>when i say heavy, i mean very heavy. proceed with caution.</p><p>song fic based off alibis by mariana's trench.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>this is not the man i'd hoped to be</em>
</p><p>tyler desperately doesn't want to remember how it got to this point. </p><p>he doesn't want to remember the screaming matches between them, the arguments over where the band was going, the fights over money and fans and the label.</p><p>but he remembers every part of every one of their fights and he remembers exactly how it came to be. </p><p>he's standing in the bathroom staring at himself in the dusty old mirror with tears running down his face and a <em>very </em>concerning amount of blood running down his arms and thoughts running through his head.</p><p>
  <em>and i'm just trying to stop the bleeding</em>
</p><p>he was frantically trying to call josh, to call his boyfriend, his bandmate, his entire other half, his whole world. begging him to pick up, to please please please pick up the fucking phone, i need you here, something happened something's terribly wrong, i can't do this anymore i'm sorry, but josh wasn't answering the phone and his vision was getting worse and he doesn't want to remember but he can't <em>stop </em>remembering.</p><p>
  <em>i don't know how to word it, i just started to deserve it</em>
</p><p>tyler's hands are slick when he's trying to hold his phone, calling josh again, ringing ringing ringing, josh isn't picking up and tyler is running out of time. tyler's laughing, because of course josh isn't picking up when he needs him most, he's laughing because it's the most on brand thing he's ever seen from his boyfriend. </p><p>he's laughing because he knows josh ignoring the phone, for once, is going to end very badly. he knows deep down if josh did pick up he'd just be yelling at him anyways and he's almost, <em>almost, </em>thankful that he wasn't answering. </p><p>he knows everything that happened was his fault between him and josh. he knows that even though josh was the one instigating the fights, tyler was the one adding fuel to the fire and he had all of it coming and he knew that this was for the best. josh wouldn't have to deal with him anymore and tyler wouldn't have to deal with anything anymore. </p><p>tyler dropped his phone and it clanged around in the sink when it hit the porcelain, splattering blood up and around the sink and onto tyler's shirt and onto the mirror. tyler laughed as it hit him because he was worried about the mess despite the mess that was surrounding him entirely. the phone was still ringing and josh was still not answering and tyler was <em>still </em>laughing at how on character it was.</p><p>
  <em>and all my, all my faces are alibi's </em>
</p><p>in a dizzy stumble, tyler slid down against the wall behind him, trying to block the smell of copper out of his nose as he felt the sticky wetness of his own blood soaking through the back of his shirt and through his pants when he sat. he had never seen this amount of blood before outside of movies and he was trying to think to himself if josh ever had. </p><p>if he hadn't, he certainly would be. </p><p>tyler remembers hiding after the fights and crying to himself for hours on end and wondering why why why was he like this and why did he always have to instigate things but he'd always put on a happy face afterwards and pretend like nothing happened. he'd go out onstage and sing his lungs out and josh would bang his drums and they'd act like the world's perfect couple and no one would ever know.</p><p>no one ever did know. the interviews were always cheery and fun, the fans were always bouncing around and cheering and dancing and tyler found himself climbing the stage too often and hiding behind his ski mask and looking down and wondering if the distance would kill him. </p><p>he'd find himself staring at josh during their songs and looking at him with the most intense love he'd ever felt and josh would instead be staring at the crowd or his drums or hiding behind his alien mask. </p><p>he had been getting so good at hiding things it was scaring himself and the fans were tweeting about how he had been climbing higher and higher and how they were terrified he'd kill himself if he fell off, only for them to not know that was the whole purpose. </p><p>the phone buzzing in the sink knocked him out of his thoughts but he was almost too weak to stand up as he leaned forward and reached up, blindly fumbling around and feeling for it through the sink full of blood.</p><p>he wiped the sticky liquid off of onto his shirt and pressed answer and josh was yelling, tyler was right, josh was going to yell, about what was going on and why was he calling him so many times and was tyler okay and what were the messages he was leaving on his phone.</p><p>tyler was dismissing everything and saying everything was fine and he was sorry for scaring josh like that and he loved him and wanted josh to tell their fans tyler was so proud of them. </p><p>josh was yelling again now and tyler's remembering why he did all this in the first place.</p><p>tyler's ending the phone call because he's scared and he doesn't want to go out with josh yelling at him.</p><p>he's sitting back against the wall and his eyes are struggling to stay open and he hears the phone buzzing but he doesn't have the strength to answer it and he's absolutely terrified of what's coming next even though it's too late to avoid it.</p><p>he thinks of when he first met josh and for the first time in years, he has a genuine smile on his face.</p><p>
  <em>and me, i'm half the man i wanted to be</em>
</p><p>
  
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